The present invention relates to methods and systems for determining the position and orientation of an object in 3-dimensional space.
There are many applications where detection and tracking of the location and orientation of an object is desired. One approach for accomplishing this involves using multiple cameras to determine the location of a specific point in space via triangulation. The orientation of an object can be determined using triangulation by finding the position of multiple points that have a known geometry on the object. A drawback to the multiple-camera procedure is the increase in cost. Another is the physical space requirements of the system.
Another procedure for finding the position of a point in space involves the use of magnetic fields and magnetic field detectors to sense the location of the detectors. Another method uses sonic wave sources located on the object and multiple detectors to locate the sources in 3D space. Another approach involves the use of an extendable multi-segment arm that is planted at one end at a fixed location. Rotation sensors measure the rotation of the each segment relative to the adjacent segment thus enabling calculation of the position and orientation of the end of the arm. In this approach, the object to be tracked is attached to the end of the extendable arm. The sonic approaches suffer from unstable calibration that drifts regularly with ambient air conditions such as temperature and humidity. The magnetic field approach has inaccurate calibration because of changeable geometry of large metallic objects that distort the magnetic fields. All of these approaches including the mechanical arm require tethering the sensors, i.e., electrical and or mechanical connection from the sensor to a processing unit. This contrasts with optical tracking such as the subject of this invention that are non-contact and measure the location and orientation of an object from a stand-off position.
A specific application where the position and orientation of an object is desired is in the insertion of surgical instruments, such as a biopsy needle into a patient or positioning of an ultrasound imaging probe on the patient. During many of these procedures, the practitioner cannot visualize the position of the instrument or the image produced by the probe in a known reference that would allow position sensing relative, for example, to an internal organ.
According to one embodiment, the invention provides improved methods and systems for the detection and tracking of objects in 3-dimensional space. Reference points of known distances and geometries relative to each other are located, allowing for the determination of the location of any point or orientation of any line whose location and orientation is known relative to the reference points. In an embodiment, an optical-based system employing the use of one or more cameras is used to locate the reference points. An aspect of this embodiment involves placing markers at the reference points and using a computing device to compute the location of the markers and the orientation of a device on which the markers are fixed. According to an embodiment, a method for determining the location of the markers comprises viewing the markers with at least one camera, producing an image of the markers, finding pixel coordinates of the markers, and using reference data to compute the locations of the markers from the pixel coordinates.
An embodiment of the invention also provides a method and system for the digitization of a 3-dimensional curve that is traced with a pointer device. In a specific application, the pointer device can be used for patient profiling.
Another embodiment of the invention provides a method and system for digitizing the position and orientation of a surgical instrument. According to an embodiment, the position and orientation of the surgical instrument is determined in the same coordinate system as an image of a patient internal organs produced by a 3D imaging method such as CT, MRI or PET.
These and other aspects, objects, and advantages of the invention are described below in the detailed description, drawings, and claims.